The e-commerce industry is booming, projected to reach $7.95 trillion by 2027. This online shopping surge creates a feeding ground for fraudsters, with account takeover (ATO) a major weapon in their arsenal. Online shopping accounts are a treasure trove of personally identifiable information (PII), saved payment details, and even rewards points. Fraudsters have been increasing their efforts to take over these accounts to use the data and access they offer.

With access to real user accounts, fraudsters can cause financial losses both direct and indirect, customer churn, and operational disruptions for businesses. Traditional bot and online fraud detection methods—like basic password security and bot detection—are no longer enough to tackle the highly sophisticated threats businesses face in today’s evolving threat landscape.

The Evolving Threat Landscape

Fraudsters are evolving at a breakneck pace, helped along by the surge of generative AI that can help create bots or even provide an additional attack vector. Increasingly sophisticated and adaptable, fraudsters are exploiting user data and behavioral patterns to bypass traditional security measures. Some examples of their exploits include:

• Email Compromise: Fraudsters can use phishing emails or malware to steal legitimate usernames and email addresses. They can then use this information to attempt logins or conduct further social engineering attacks.
• Session Hijacking: Fraudsters can exploit vulnerabilities in web applications to steal session cookies, allowing them to take over a legitimate user’s session without needing login credentials.
• Malware: Fraudsters can infect user devices with malware that logs keystrokes or steals browser cookies, allowing them to capture login credentials.
• Automated Login Attempts: Fraudsters can automate login attempts, often using stolen credentials or trying a vast number of username and password combinations very quickly. These attempts may exhibit unusual typing patterns or mouse movements.
• Geolocation Spoofing: Similar to IP spoofing, fraudsters can manipulate their device settings to appear to be located in a trusted region, bypassing location-based security measures.

The Need for a Holistic Approach

Piecemeal protection is not enough to stop today’s evolving threat landscape. Sophisticated threats call for sophisticated defenses that include several layers of detection across a variety of signals to identify even the most stealthy of bots and fraudsters.

Account Protect is a comprehensive solution designed to address the advanced threats we see today. Using several layers of machine learning that look for signature-based detection, behavioral analysis, time series analysis, and more, we can identify account fraud tactics—like ATO and fake account creation—with precision.

This solution goes beyond the basics, identifying fraudulent intent. On its own, Account Protect can continuously assess fraud risks over time and identify fraudulent intent from visitors to your website. When combined with DataDome’s powerful Bot Protection, Account Protect provides the highest possible level of protection against sophisticated account fraud.

Account Protect: Empowering Your Team

As fraudsters become more sophisticated, their attacks increase in scale and complexity. Their attacks become more difficult for your fraud team to identify and mitigate, diminishing your team’s efficiency. Account Protect works in the background to empower your team to make the best decisions for your business, keeping them focused on their goals rather than responding to attacks 24/7.

The benefits of using Account Protect include:

• Enhanced Detection Capabilities: Anomaly detection and machine learning identify subtle red flags that might be missed by manual review. When attacks are in the thousands, ML can identify anomalies much easier and faster than humans can.
• Improved Efficiency: Account Protect streamlines investigation workflows, saving your team valuable time. Our easy-to-read dashboards give you explainability and transparency into our recommended actions based on your fraudulent traffic.
• Data-Driven Threat Management: Account Protect’s broader timeframe and wider data analysis provide deeper user insights for proactive threat identification. By looking at a user’s journey from the start, malicious behavior is easier to identify than by assessing a single point in time.
• Seamless Integration: Account Protect integrates with existing security systems to minimize disruption and maximize efficiency. Currently, we can integrate to enable multi-factor authentication, password resets, lock accounts, etc.
• Business Impact: Account fraud exposes customer data, both personal and financial—which can have a huge negative impact on your business. Preventing ATO protects customer data, reduces operational costs, and safeguards brand reputation.

Proactive Protection with Account Protect

Want to see how Account Protect can help your fraud team stop account fraud before it impacts your business? Book a demo to experience Account Protect’s capabilities firsthand.